New dissertation within One Health: We congratulate Tarquin Netherway!
Last changed: 23 August 2023
Tarquin Netherway successfully defended his thesis at the beginning of June 2023. In his research, he focuses mainly on symbioses between plants and microbes such as bacteria and fungi, in particular how the interactions between plants, root-symbiotic fungi, and soil microbes influence ecological and biogeochemical processes such as plant and forest health and carbon and nutrient cycling.
What is "the big idea" about your research?
My research focuses mainly on symbioses between plants and microbes such as bacteria and fungi, in particular how the interactions between plants, root-symbiotic fungi, and soil microbes influence ecological and biogeochemical processes such as plant and forest health and carbon and nutrient cycling. This relates to One Health, as I take a system-wide approach to understanding the interactions between different organisms, ecological scales, and processes while considering how these interactions may be altered by environmental change and in turn contribute to environmental change or ecosystem stability under environmental change.
Can you tell us more about your research and how it is linked to One Health?
My research falls mainly under basic research, meaning that in the short term, I am helping to contribute knowledge about the basic ecology of terrestrial ecosystems, particularly around fungal and microbial ecology, which until recently, with rapid advancements in high-throughput molecular methods, has been difficult to study due to the microscopic and cryptic nature of these organisms. In the long term, this basic ecological knowledge can inform more applied research that seeks to solve more short- and long-term problems, such as how to manage the stability of ecosystems and human production systems under environmental change.
Here you can see Tarquin in the forest collecting a soil sample, from which he extract DNA to study the microbial organisms and their functional genes. Photo: Anna Lundmark
What problem does your research help to solve in the short and long term?
My research can contribute to a more sustainable world by first contributing to the foundational understanding of how the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems may be altered under environmental change through shifts in the interactions between plants and microbes. The results of my research can then impact society by informing management practices that aim to increase the stability of natural and human production systems faced with a changing and fluctuating environment.
What is your plan for the near future?
I have recently started a Postdoc at my department, the Department of Ecology, where right now I am working on a field experiment, where I planted seedlings of many different tree species in agricultural fields in Umeå and Alnarp. I will use molecular methods such as metatranscriptomics and metabolomics to look at the functional profiles of the soil microbial communities after the seedlings have established and relate these microbiome properties to seedling growth and nutrient acquisition.
We wish Tarquin the best of luck in his future career!